Jim Cogley’s Reflections: Tues 1 Sept – Mon 7 Sept 2026
Our annual Pilgrimage season in Lady’s Island is still in full swing. You might like to pay a visit or bring a group for an afternoon or evening. If you are not familiar with the area it is a hidden gen of picturesque beauty.
Tuesday 1 Sept 7.30pm – Ecumenical Service
Wednesday 2 September – A Time to Heal – 7.30pm
Sunday 6 September – Remembering our Loved Ones – Mass 3pm
Tuesday 8 September – 3pm Mass in Church
Closing of Pilgrimage Mass at 7pm with Torchlight Procession
Daily Mass during season will be at 3pm & 7.30pm in Church
Prayer around the Cross on Fridays after 7.30pm Mass
Blessing of the Sick each Wednesday & Friday after 3pm Mass
Director of Pilgrimage: Fr Jim Cogley PP Lady’s Island Phone 0862471063
Tues Sept 1
Living in Denial
Living in Denial is a very lonely place where there is a population of only one. It is the place of isolation, where, as the word suggests, I Don’t Even Know I Am Lying, either to myself or to those around me. It is a strongly defended space of not wanting to see, to know or to feel the reality of emotional pain. Usually before I am ready to allow anyone to break through the castle walls of my defenses, I will have had to suffer quite a lot and be at the place of deep awareness knowing that my life is a total mess and its all of my own making.
Wed Sept 2
The Cost of Denial
Denial creates the illusion of being in charge in so far as I can block out the memory of a painful event or misappropriate behaviour and send it to the unconscious. However, I cannot block emotional energy and that will continue to influence how I think, feel, behave and react. It will continue to undermine the quality of my life to the point where I no longer have a life but only an existence. The emotional weight of repressed emotion is carried in the body and this may be expressing what I am not saying when it becomes unwell. Because it takes energy to keep energy repressed, I will feel depleted, stressed, anxious, perhaps depressed and likely have sleep difficulties.
Thurs Sept 3
Truth prevails
In a time of trauma Denial can protect us from the truth but it cannot change the truth. It can become not just a way of life but a way of blocking out life. My father dies suddenly when I was still a child. I was too young to process what had happened so I went into denial for many years and it was only as a young adult that I revisited that time in my life and consciously let go of my dad. For all of us denial provides a temporary coping mechanism when an emotional onslaught is too overwhelming to handle. Many children from a very young age have to develop this in order to survive a dysfunctional home situation. The problem is that something that served us well in early life becomes a major problem when we become adults because we continue to use it to avoid our emotions.
Fri Sept 4
Our built in Distraction
I would have a concern that in today’s world very little negative emotions are being transformed. The reason for this is because our mobile phone is ever present and whenever there is even a hint of emotional discomfort this is sure to be our first port of call. This is compounded by the fact that it is so socially acceptable and used in the same way by everyone. So in waiting rooms, buses, trains very few will engage in any kind of meaningful conversation, everyone will be glued to their phone. Slowly the art of normal conversation is being eroded before our eyes and is now becoming glaringly obvious in third level colleges where vast number of students are suffering from social phobia and unable to engage with their fellow students.
Sat Sept 5
Forms of Denial
Denial is endemic and practiced in a myriad of ways, most of which we are unaware of. Some of the more common ones are are: Addictions, social media, TV busyness, sport, romance, religion, success, people pleasing, aggression, minding, talking, silence, shopping, money, appearance, exercise, health, travel, personal opinions, needing to be right, blaming, victimhood. The reality is that denial is endemic and practiced by the masses of which we are a part. It is important to become aware of where we practice it and how it can play a huge role in our lives.
Sun Sept 6
Being Wronged
If your bother or sister has wronged you. What do we do do? Who among us has never been hurt or felt wronged? The Gospel of today offers some very practical advice. Once a decision was made by someone at parish level that concerned me and I should have been asked about. It shocked me and felt like blatant insensitivity. I went to bed that night and thought, this could keep me awake mulling over it for nights on end. So I first asked the question; from what I knew of this woman was she by nature vindictive and the answer was no. She had always acted from good intent. So I came to the conclusion that in spite of how offended I felt I might just be wrong and losing sleep over nothing. So I turned over went to sleep having said to heck with this matter until I have all the facts. Next day I went and said I had been upset by what I heard and said that I hoped I had no reason to be. As the story unfolded there was not an ounce of offence in what had happened. It was simply a case of me not knowing all the facts and how a decision was necessary within a a tight time frame. Had I not gone I could have been still fuming till this time next year and feeling offended where no offence was even meant.
It then goes on to say, you must not bear hatred for someone in your heart, You must tell that person of their offence and in that way you will not take a sin upon yourself. It then says you must not exact vengeance nor must you bear a grudge.
There’s a very basic piece of wisdom that evades so many and its this; that any negativity or resentment that I bear towards someone else is not helpful for myself, neither for my spiritual, emotional or physical well-being so why carry it? If I have a face on me towards anyone it’s always my face that’s no longer smiling.
It’s not uncommon to hear such expressions as, ‘I hate the sight of that one.’ Or ‘He just sickens my stomach’ or ‘I can’t stand the ground he or she walks on.’ Such statements suggest a strong hatred or antipathy where something has happened and a relationship has gone sour. Our opinion that so and so is not a nice person is purely based on our own experience and not the universal truth. Then have you ever noticed that when we are angry with someone there is absolutely nothing that they can say or do that will seem right.
If the offence is serious and you take legal advice you will probably find yourself taking that person to court and while all that is taking place be advised to have no more to do with that person and have all correspondence go through your solicitor. Going down this route invariably results in further and even permanent estrangement that may last for generations. That’s where we need to be careful as to who we go to. There are legal sharks who give the lowest possible advice at the highest possible cost.
Apart from going down the legal avenue there are so many other routes we might take. We could create a smokescreen and say to the person; ‘Everybody is saying this about you, or they’re all talking.’ Those who use such tactics rarely say who all these others are because outside their own minds they rarely exist. Another would be to avoid confrontation altogether and take the passive approach. Anything for a quiet life, let’s not rock the boat; don’t say anything. The problem is that by not confronting an unacceptable situation our self-esteem diminishes and we leave ourselves vulnerable to being abused over and over again. When the Bible speaks of taking the sin of the other upon ourselves this is precisely what is meant. We are called as Christians to use our anger as Christ did and confront injustice in order to bring about change.
The problem also with not leaving our anger at the right doorstep is that we displace it elsewhere. In other words we take it out on someone else who doesn’t deserve it or our general irritability spills out like a poison on everyone we have dealings with.
What the Bible says in relation to conflict is to have courage and confront.
The opposite of courage is cowardice and it’s so much easier to be a coward when dealing with contentious issues. Another way we can recognize our cowardice is when we begin to say things behind someone’s back that we are not prepared to say to his or her face. When that happens we engage in a form of character assassination where we try to diminish that person’s estimation in the eyes of others. In doing so we bring to our aid any piece of gossip or innuendo we can lay our hands on to support our cause. There’s always someone who is foolish enough to listen and if they themselves have any unresolved issue with that same person then we have really backed a winner.
The Bible warns against exacting vengeance. In other words don’t try to get even. That makes so much sense because the person who does so is like someone drinking deadly poison in the vain hope that it will affect the other person. Or, it’s like being in a small boat with someone and wishing their end to sink and believing you can keep your own afloat at the same time.
In the end of the day we are all frail human beings who in our journey through life walk on quite thin ice. That ice is capable of supporting our own weight but not much more. It’s when we choose to carry burdens of guilt, hatred or resentment that it begins to crack beneath our feet. Once we fall through it’s well nigh impossible to climb back out unless we get help from a higher power. Divine assistance is what we always end up needing to call upon after we have failed to listen to divine advice.
Mon Sept 7
Buried Alive
Living in denial means we bury issues alive and in doing so we deny a part of ourselves. It is our past that continues to influence our present and in all sorts of ways. We overreact to something said or done in a manner that is disproportionate. Memories that we thought we had firmly locked away can come flooding back. An issue that we thought we had buried for many years can suddenly resurrect itself with the realization that what we thought was well and truly dead is very much alive. Even our ability to take honest feedback can be so coloured by the past that all we can hear is not feedback but criticism. The bottom line is that what we refuse to face grows stronger in the shadows.